Tuesday, May 05, 2009

In a document entitled the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon," which was issued to the Department of Homeland Security, the Obama administration defines pro-life advocates as follows: "A movement of groups or individuals who are virulently anti-abortion and advocate violence against providers of abortion-related services, their employees, and their facilities. Some cite various racist and anti-Semitic beliefs to justify their criminal activities."

And, although this terrorism dictionary has been recalled and Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told the Washington Times the lexicon "was not an authorized..product," still, one has to wonder whether the Department of Homeland Security had pro-life advocates in mind when it crafted the following paragraph:

"The terrorist threat to the Homeland is not restricted to violent Islamic extremist groups. We also confront an ongoing threat posed by domestic terrorists based and operating strictly within the United States. Often referred to as 'single-issue' groups, they include white supremacists groups, animal rights extremists, and eco-terrorist groups, among others." (Read the full text here.)

It's this phrase "among others" that concerns me. Is there really any doubt that pro-lifers are being lumped into this grouping? Especially after the release of the "Domestic Extremism Lexicon"? Gradually the "ideologically unwanted" must be silenced as our nation slips into totalitarianism.

Related reading: Will those who oppose homosexuality on moral grounds soon be silenced by new "hate crimes" legislation? Read here.

5 comments:

Fred
said...

I don't have any doubt whatsoever. Obama has shown nothing but contempt for pro-lifers and for Christians who take their faith seriously. But both the pro-abortion movement and the radical homosexual hate movement can count on him as a friend.

"Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law, and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person. It requires that the necessary conditions be present for the advancement both of the individual through education and formation in true ideals, and of the "subjectivity" of society through the creation of structures of participation and shared responsibility. Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and sceptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism." (Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus).

We have become just that: a democracy without values. And what was once a Republic is gradually becoming a "thinly disguised totalitarianism." I never would have thought it possible just 10 years ago. But America is not the same country I grew up in.

First we learn of executive orders creating civilian internment camps. Then we learn of the new "hate-crimes" legislation which would apparently silence preaching against homosexuality. Now we learn that the Obama administration defines pro-lifers as domestic terrorists. We are indeed in twilight as a Christian nation.

It was former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas who warned that, "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."

We are now in that twilight. What can we do from a practical standpoint (besides prayer which must come first)? The French Philosopher Jacques Maritain provides us with an answer: "If the Western democracies are not to be swept away, and if a centuries-long darkness is not to come down upon civilization, they must discover in its primitive purity their vital principle, whic is justice and love, and whose source is of divine origin. They must reconstruct their political philosophy and thus rediscover the sense of justice and heroism in the rediscovery of God."

It's not without reason that Pope Benedict XVI committed himself early on with an Encyclical Letter entitled "Deus Caritas Est" (God Is Love). In No. 34 of this Encyclical, the Holy Father notes that, "..Augustine once said, a State which is not governed according to justice would be just a bunch of thieves." How so? The Holy Father answers: "Fundamental to Christianity is the distinction between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God (cf. Mt 22:21), in other words, the distinction between Church and State.."

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About Me

Born in Bitburg, Germany,
Paul Melanson is a Catholic lay-philosopher and apologist whose work has appeared in many publications and websites including The Union Leader, The Wanderer, Seattle Catholic, Newsblaze, Helium, and Amazines. He has been interviewed by The National Catholic Register, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the television newsmagazine Chronicle.